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So we finally did it. We loaded up the whole family and a friend’s family and drove from OKC to Denver. We went to watch our hometown boy Tyler Arnason the Joe Sakic retirement ceremony/first game of the year for the Colorado Avalanche. It was a great trip, but was way too quick.
We ended up leaving Wednesday morning at 3am hoping the toddlers would sleep in the car. Well, one of them did and it wasn’t mine. Well, eventually he fell asleep and got some restless sleep, but not before my buddy’s toddler looked over at him and said “Shhhhh, I’m trying to sleep!” We made pretty good time all said and done. We stretched out the lunch stop to let the kiddos play for a while. It was pretty obvious they needed the energy release and it was good to get out of the car for an hour or so.
There was a storm coming in over the mountains and there was some wicked wind that hit us somewhere in western Kansas. If it wasn’t 60-70 mph straight line winds, I would be surprised. This was ridiculous! There were flagpoles bent over, semis swerving all over the place, and it was hard to get out of the car when we stopped for gas. The amount of crap that blew into my eyes in the short time I was out of the car was just astounding.
I’ve got a friend in Denver that urged me to try to get into town before 4 or after 6 or we would be stuck in traffic for that length of time. We barely made it on the front end and got to the hotel with uh, minimal incident. We relaxed for a bit and let the kids run wild and then made the mistake of trying to make them sit still in a restaurant to eat dinner. That didn’t go well. The kiddos were so tired and stir cray that trying to make the sit still for any length of time was just mean on our part. 
What we finally decided on was letting the wives walk back to the hotel with the kids (just a couple of parking lots away) and my buddy and I went off to the drug store to pick up some decogenstants that my son was in desperate need of. Eventually we got them back to the rooms and they crashed hard – even on the pull-out sofa bed.
Thursday was the day of the game and I ended up leaving my wife and kid with my friends and went off to see my friend that lives in Denver. He just bought a house and I thought it would be a really good thing to go and see it. So he took me to some burger joint that was spectacular but unfortunately I can’t remember the name. We then went off to his new place and he had me try to play Madden on his Wii. That’s my first time to try to use the thing and it is pretty cool, but it sure was hard to actually use. Made me think too much to play a video game.
Then back to the hotel to get ready for the game — the whole reason for the trip. There was a meet up with a bunch of the posters off of Mile High Hockey (the friend that we went up there with writes for them). That was a bit strange — a little too much like a Star Trek convention. I had to introduce myself as my avatar and then “you can call me Chris”. That went pretty well though. The room the restaurant had reserved a side room for us and there was a small raised platform area that we were able to let the kids run on and not disturb too many people. Then we walked back to the Pepsi Center for the retirement ceremony.
The ceremony itself was really nice. Our seats were in the lower bowl and there was someone sitting above us in the “club” level (I think) that kept yelling “I/We love you Joe!” His man-love for Sakic was a little too much.
The game was great. The expectations for the team are pretty low this year and they were playing the President’s Cup (regular season champs) winning team (regular season champs) from last year. The Avs are full of young guys – coaches and players – and they actually looked organized and played actual good hockey! I was trying to take pictures of some of the action and actually pulled this picture of a goal – you can see the puck in the net!
We turned around and started heading home Friday morning – way too soon. We should have stayed a little longer and gone to the mountains. We were sooooooo close and my wife really wanted to make the detour, but we ended up not adding the time to the trip.
Heading home was uneventful all said and done. Parents were tired, and so were the kids, so the DVD player got a whole lot of use. We fortunately found an outlet in the back of the van to plug in the car charger. The batteries ran out on the way to Denver and the kids were much less than thrilled about it.
We had borrowed my mom and dad’s minivan for the trip and once we got home and got unloaded (around 11 pm), I had to go and get gas and wash it because my folks were going to take it on a trip the next day. Guess we got the engine warmed up for them.
All in all, it was a great trip. The price we ended up paying for the tickets was well worth it. The price we paid by sitting in a car for that long and not enjoying the city – not so much. We’ll do it differently next time – and there will be a next time.
This is the second part of a series of posts. Click here for part 1.
There’s nothing quite like taking a trip on someone else’s dime. I really wish that my family could have come along though. A week away from those you love is a long time!